Meaningful Conversations

[Starbuck]

I'm not sure if there is a question here or if I'm going to articulate this in a way to clearly get my point across, but I will try.

"What good is Idealism for society? Who cares that it is all mind."

"I don't need God or Idealism to be a moral and good person."

"Truth is relative. It's all made up. a social construct."

"Once wealth is redistributed equally, all people have the same opportunities, this or that political party in power, then life will be good. Ontology does not matter."

"There is no truth and it doesn't matter because collectively we can build a just society. We don't need any of that nonsense. Look at me! I'm an atheist and I am a good morally person that donates to charities etc.."

"Life has no meaning."

I don't feel like I am exaggerating either. 99% of the people I speak to or see online are only concerned with redistribution of power and resources. There is no talk about philosophy, ontology or metaphysics. And when challenged, they just say I don't need any of that in order to be morally good and society does not need that either. Talks about ontology or metaphysics are usually pinned as cultural appropriation, spiritual bypassing, or savior complex.

I know we can talk about materialism being devoid of meaning, but people don't seem to care. Especially young people. They don't care about life having meaning, they just care about people being treated equally, resources being divided equally, taxing the rich, etc..
Not saying these are bad things (on the contrary!), but it seems futile to have meaningful conversations about change in ontology.

This seems to be the majority of people. How are we to have meaningful conversations?!

The question should not be : "who cares that it is all mind?"
It should be: "what happens when life is lived under the assumption that separation is only nominal, and we ARE that one mind?"

The former is just a philosophical stance that is potentially quite abstract and disconnected.
As Bernardo often says, :"The mind is the bouncer of the heart", so for some people those speculations may open them to the latter, more significant question. Note this question is rhetorical and experiential. It is not a stance, but the end of all stances.

The people who focus on equality, and slicing up the material realm into even parts are just like all of us: They want happiness, peace, and actualisation.
All they ultimately want is to dive into the second question, and when they are ready some of them may need to ask the first question. Others will get there by a completely different route.

[AshvinP]

This seems to be the majority of people. How are we to have meaningful conversations?!

A majority of people here may be annoyed that I am bringing him up again, but this question touches on the genius of Jordan Peterson. For the metaphysical questions to really capture the imagination, they must also reveal the poverty of any mode of being-in-the-world which chooses to ignore them. People must be challenged to think through what it actually means to make everyone "equal" in resources, etc. For example, in a recent discussion with Weinstein, he brought up one thing it would mean - no one can ever trade with another person again. We only trade because at least one person is in a better position to produce one resource (good, service, etc.) than another person who is in a better position to produce another resource. That will sound perfectly obvious and trite to anyone reading it now, but you would be amazed at how many people have never stopped to think about their daily acts of trade in that way.

So the metaphysical implications must be made concrete to our personal lives and our social interactions for people to truly take interest. But that also reveals the main competition in this regard - modern communications technology. For young people especially, "social interaction" is nothing more than staring at a screen for most of the day and typing short messages, clicking "like" buttons, etc. These devices and AI algorithms have tapped into the collective subconscious and are quickly figuring out more about us than we know about them... in fact that is already the case and the playing field is only becoming more tilted in their favor. Modern teenagers are more likely to "change" their gender based on a few social media ads and comments than they are to cut back on mobile phone staring. So the best option I see is to fight fire with fire; to tap into that same collective subconscious for the opposite aim - to encourage people to become more introspective and conscious of what motivates them and guides their being.

JP has tried to do that through content like his Biblical lectures and was pretty damn successful. I just hope he gets back to it soon, which, in fairness, he has been doing a ton of interviews and steering some conversations in that direction, and also other thinkers like BK get in on the action. We can play our small parts to encourage that as well. We could do a lot worse than keeping people engaged in the discussion on this forum, so I am very grateful for everyone that helps to make that happen!

[SanteriSatama]

gladness in my heart, which is what an old guy wants.

I like very much the shape of the two tetrahedrons in the center of your mandala.

[Lou Gold]

gladness in my heart, which is what an old guy wants.

I like very much the shape of the two tetrahedrons in the center of your mandala.

MERKABA

[Soul_of_Shu]

I feel quite moved by what JV relates here ...

[Peter Jones]

I know we can talk about materialism being devoid of meaning, but people don't seem to care. Especially young people. They don't care about life having meaning, they just care about people being treated equally, resources being divided equally, taxing the rich, etc..
Not saying these are bad things (on the contrary!), but it seems futile to have meaningful conversations about change in ontology.

This seems to be the majority of people. How are we to have meaningful conversations?!

The problem is our education system, which leaves most if us unable to spell metaphysics. The cause is the philosophy department, which has no comprehension of the topic and tells everyone else nobody can comprehend it, The cause of this is poor scholarship. The cause of this is a dislike of mysticism, which is assumed to be a lot of tosh. The cause of this, these days, is probably science-envy and peer pressure.